Saturday, 28 January 2017

I
chose Guernica by Picasso. And since I'm a huge admirer of Edward Said I add a
quote from him that matches the works Guernica and Raqqa. His discourse on
imperialism has brought me in flux during my student days.

Rabi Koria,
2016

'Just
as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free
from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting
because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about
forms, about images and imaginings.'

Sunday, 8 January 2017

The
old master that came into my life in recent years is definitely Jacob van
Ruisdael. Three years ago, I relocated from the city of Enschede to a small
village near the border. There, I found a studio situated on a farm in the
middle of rural Twente. All at once, I was confronted with the beauty of this
landscape. Everywhere around me, I perceived the paintings of the old Dutch
masters and of Jacob van Ruisdael in particular, who also worked for some time
right across the border in the German town of Bad Bentheim. I became fascinated
by the Romanticism in his landscapes, an idea that was employed in order to
emphasize melancholy or Weltschmerz. The fact that Ruisdael composed his
paintings according to his own taste, appealed to me and led me to reinterpreting
his landscapes.

ABOUT THIS BLOG

A blog where invited artists show that they stand in a tradition by expressing their commitment to an inspiring, no longer living predecessor. Nothing But Good Should Be Said Of The Dead.
A blog by Michael de Kok, René Korten and Reinoud van Vught.